With thousands of installations across North America and around the world, the TarpLess Ripening Room from Thermal Technologies is the system of choice for many of the industry’s leading retailers, wholesalers and growers. This year, Thermal Tech will be spotlighting the benefits and features of this groundbreaking system at Fruit Logistica for the very first time.

“We are very excited to be exhibiting in Berlin,” said company president Jim Lentz. “Global demand for the TarpLess system is growing fast and Fruit Logistica provides an ideal venue to help us bring this technology closer to the international community.”

Lentz will be on hand to discuss the system along with company Vice President David Byrne, who has decades of industry experience covering every link in the banana supply chain from stem to store.

“There are millions of pounds of bananas being processed in TarpLess Ripening Rooms every day,” said Byrne. “Not to mention tons of avocados, pears and stone fruit. This gives us an amazing amount of insight into the ripening process as well as a wealth of feedback and data. Combined with continuing advances in technology and engineering, this has enabled us to fine-tune the TarpLess system to the point where the ripening needs of any individual truckload of fruit can be met and controlled with absolute precision. It has been an amazing process, one that has taken us leaps and bounds beyond where the industry was when we started.”

When Thermal Tech began building environmentally controlled warehouses back in the early 90s, there was a wide range of ripening processes being used across the industry. Seeing the need for an efficient, standardized way to ripen on a larger scale, Thermal Tech started work on a ripening system that would enable full truckloads of palletized fruit to be ripened to the exact same color at the exact same time with total control over quality and uniformity.

The result was Thermal Tech’s patented TarpLess design, which took the industry by storm. Today, TarpLess ripening rooms can be found in the distribution centers of nine of the top 10 grocery retailers, ripening over 70 percent of all bananas processed in North America. As the system’s unparalleled record of success grew, it wasn’t long before Thermal Tech’s clients looked to employ the system in other countries.

“It was a pretty big deal when we had our first installation in Mexico roughly 14 years ago,” said Byrne. “Over the last 18 months alone we’ve had installations in Mexico, Canada, China, Chile and the Netherlands. The avocado ripening rooms we recently installed in China are the first in the entire country as far as we know. Although completed less than a year ago, the installation has already proven so successful that we anticipate more rooms will be needed within the year.”

“Initially we were a little hesitant about installing rooms in some of these distant locations,” said Lentz. “The distance, language, technology and business protocols can present quite a challenge. Luckily, we have long-established relationships with many of the world’s largest retailers, wholesalers and growers. Their familiarity with our system has enabled us to work together to lay the groundwork to streamline every step in the process. Because of these key relationships, expanding into new markets has proven easier than expected.”

"As worldwide demand for high quality, uniformly ripened fruit continues to grow, we’re doing everything necessary to ensure our clients are able to meet this demand with ever-greater efficiency and success,” said Byrne. “It’s what drives us as a company and what has made the TarpLess ripening room one of the most widely used in the industry. We look forward to helping others share in this same success by presenting the benefits and features of this amazing system at Fruit Logistica.”